October's First
by Estoma
Summary: Dirk likes to watch the first storm of the year, but Fallon feels it sink into his skin. Cover image by the lovely April.


**Author's note: For the oneshot challenge at Caesar's palace. **

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><p><em>i. <em>

The storm is a wild beast. Its hide is the dark bruise-coloured sky, its claws and teeth the wind and snow, flying like daggers in the night. And it roars over the Kellies. Windows rattle down in Marble and at the academy up in the foothills. The storm snarls its frustration as the sturdy houses hold it back. So it prowls the streets and hunts among the rocks. When it finds no prey its shrieks are wild and cold among the crags. But for all its fury, the storm is patient, too. In its dark and malicious heart, it knows it will not go hungry. Soon it will feed. By the end of the cold season this storm, or one of its brothers and sisters, will kill and kill again. Sometimes the bodies are frozen in the alleys; the unsuspecting can die metres from the light and warmth of their homes. But other times, the lost children will not be found until the spring thaw. Their bodies will be near as perfect as the night the storm took them – a hollow comfort for the parents who will kiss darkly frozen lips before the caskets close.

_ii. _

The hills are hulking dark, like crouching monsters themselves. They do their own hunting all the year with the splitting crack of rock and a rumble at their hearts. But tonight the child on their slopes belongs to the storm. It has already marked him for his skin is pale and his lips tinged blue – all the wrong colours for a child. Shivers take hold of his body and his teeth chatter. The storm laughs and the wind whips around the old quarry; while its prey has the strength still to shiver, the hunt continuous, but the storm will win before the night is out. It hunches, cloud-dark, over the city and the foothills. The little boy feels its claws through his clothes and he wraps his arms around himself. At first, the sting of his uncle's words was sharper than the wind, but no longer. He stumbles and flings his hands forward to catch himself. There, the wind has driven the drift hard like ice against the rock and it tears the child's palms. The storm roars. It does not need blood, but it likes the flavour and the heat. The boy grows colder as the storm tastes.

_iii. _

It is the first storm of the cold season, and in District 2 it starts early. But the first few storms never last for very long. They are all anger and hunger and they spend themselves too soon. Those that come later will stalk the district for a week at a time, maybe longer. They will pile snow deep up the doors and windows of the sturdy homes, turning day to grey twilight. This storm is impatient. Dirk leans back in his chair and watches the flying white outside. A small smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. He likes to watch the storm howl as it is foiled by glass and brick. Dirk always watches the first storm of the year and this is his favourite place to do it. One wall is a bank of windows, facing north, and that is where the weather comes from. The Border Range is the breeding ground of storm and cloud. Up there, among the highest peaks, they are born and grow strong and hungry. But the room has triple-glazed windows and heat radiates from the pipes in the floor, and Dirk is warm enough not to wear a jacket. A square glass rests comfortably in his hand. He takes a sip of scotch and swirls it against his teeth. It burns all the way down. Dirk would enjoy it but for the heavy guilt that keeps his smile from reaching his eyes.

_iv. _

Tears freeze to the boy's cheeks. The air is so cold that it tears at his throat, and so do his sobs. They are ragged as he fights for breath in the fierce wind. Over him, around him, in his lunges and under his clothes, the storm is waiting. It is waiting for his shivers to stop and his sobs to grow weak. For all the sharpness of its teeth and claws, the storm is gentle to its victims at the end. The wind comes in gusts as the storm's anticipation grows. Fallon stumbles forwards. He knows that when you're lost you should stay still, but a deep instinct tugs in his gut and he keeps moving. He falls again and this time he is slower to get up. With another tearing, shuddering breath he calls for help, but the wind snatches it away. In the dark and the snow all the familiar landmarks have gone – the storm has hidden them in order to hunt. The child is hopelessly lost and he knows it well. Again he calls for his uncle; he has forgotten Dirk's harsh words though a bruise spreads dark over his jaw. When he shapes his uncle's name again, he does not have breath to shout – it is a helpless plea. Fallon trips again and the lip of the quarry is very near.

_v. _

Dirk pours another glass but does not take a drink. He watches the storm's fury and looks for shapes in the flying snow. If he believed in ghosts, he'd have looked for his district partner. Dirk knows she would not haunt their arena of searing sand and bone where she wandered, delirious with the heat, onto another child's blade. He shakes his head. By morning, the storm will have spent itself and there will be the special sort of snow-still that comes only after a fresh fall. For the children still young enough, it will be a time for games. Dirk remembers when he and his friends would make a cornucopia of fresh packed snow and fill it with stick swords and spears. They would build snowmen to be the tributes that nobody wanted to play – those that were not Careers. The snowmen would shatter under their swords for they did not try to make them strong. Dirk remembers snow crystals flying in the morning sun. He thinks of Fallon's cheeks flushed and eyes bright, playing the same games he used to as a child. Quickly, he takes a swallow of scotch and grimaces. _Maybe I was too hard on the poor bugger._

_vi. _

The storm's talons tear at the child and he no longer has the strength to resist. He has stopped looking for the familiar buildings of the academy. His strides grow short. The storm feels his surrender and it thrusts its claws through his clothes and rips at his skin. When Fallon stumbles, he tries to get to his feet but he cannot. The wind pins him to the snow. Weakly, he crawls until he can huddle in the lee of a rock, but the wind finds him there. The night belongs to the storm, and so does the child. Like laughter among the rocks, the wind is cruel. Fallon sobs quietly now. With his arms wrapped around himself, he whispers Dirk's name. His lips are nearly purple but his skin is pale like ice. Fallon imagines the glow of headlights through the snow and Dirk's deep, gruff voice. He tightens his arms around his chest and pretends they are Dirk's. So badly does the child long for his uncle, he sees a dark shape in the snow. A name comes to his lips and he leans forwards, but it is just a cruel trick of rock and flying snow. Fallon whimpers and puts his head down on his knees. So the child cries quietly while the storm sinks its teeth into his skin.

_vii. _

The door in the airlocks opens but Dirk does not turn from the window. He is onto his third glass of scotch and he still feels the twist of guilt. _He was fucking homesick. Course he wanted my attention. _Another sip sears down his throat and he wonders why he is drinking. Enobaria does not shut the door and the storm swirls in behind her to die in the warmth and light. The roar of the wind is loud now. Enobaria rips the scarf away from her mouth.

"Fallon's not with you?" There's a heavy urgency to her words. "Dirk?"

"No." His voice is ice-sharp. "Why?"

"Dirk – I can't find him."

The glass shatters in his hand.

_viii. _

The storm is gentle now. Sharp fingers of wind feel like caresses and Fallon stops shivering. Ice starts to build up on his face but he does not brush it away. He is warm now, and the storm curls around him. The snow still flies and the night is all grey and white and black but the child is not worried anymore. He is not scared of the dark, or the things that lurk in there, not when it feels soft and comforting. Quickly now, his thoughts start to break up like the fragments of flying snow. Eagerly, the wind slips into his clothes and runs over his skin. The cold has numbed the spreading bruise that Dirk painted across his jaw. _I just…wanted, _Fallon thinks, _I just… _But he cannot remember his anguish and his tears when he told Dirk he was scared to go to sleep. He does not remember his uncle's ugly words or the blow that punctuated them. Softly, the snow starts to pile at his feet, but he cannot feel his skin. Then, gently, the storm wraps him up. No longer is he afraid to go to sleep and he does not feel his heart slowing. Fallon is too young to realise he is dying.

_ix. _

The chains grip the road but all he can see in the glow of the headlights is grey and dark. Dirk slams his hand on the steering wheel. He knows it is foolish to drive but he edges the ute up to a reckless forty. The thrum of the engine is lost in the storm and Dirk holds his hand down on the horn. He wonders then, if there really are monsters out in the wind and snow. _No, I'm the fucking monster, _he think savagely. _He's only eight and I told him to fuck off. _Dirk thinks of Fallon, then, not laughing and playing at being a killer, but small and cold and still. His sinuses burn and he grits his teeth until his skull aches. Now, he is really out in the storm and the wind rocks the car. Dirk fights for the steering wheel, tight lips, white knuckles, and the storm roars. He shouts back. Then, though he does not realise it, he whispers his nephew's name over and over like a prayer. He will never again sit and watch the strange sort of beauty in the snow and night. Now it is an enemy that he cannot kill with the knife tucked in his belt.

_x. _

Dirk has beaten odds twenty-four to one with sword and spear, and when he finds his nephew, he is ready to believe in miracles. But the child is half a ghost by the time Dirk cradles him in his arms. Fallon does not stir. Tears turn to ice on Dirk's cheeks and words freeze thick in his throat. He has never felt so cold in his life, and he tries to shield his nephew from the wind, but Fallon is past feeling the storm. The wind fights Dirk for every staggering step back to the car. It screams and if it had words, they would have been evil and black. Dirk nearly sobs when he has to put Fallon down in the snow to wrench open the door. With steely fingers, the storm grips it, and for a frantic moment, it is the most important fight Dirk has ever had. Then, in the craped cabin of the ute, he holds his shaking fingers to Fallon's neck. When he finds a pulse, Dirk sobs with relief. The storm screams its anger and claws at the car but he laughs and sobs until he gasps for breath. When he won he 43rd Games, he gave only a stoic smile.

_xi. _

Dirk is sobbing still as he tugs off Fallon's wet clothes. The child is limp as a doll in his arms and Dirk has to cradle Fallon's head as if he were a baby. He turns the heaters on and shrugs out of his jacket and shirt until he can hold his nephew against his skin. He wraps a blanket around both of them. It is not until after the storm that Dirk realises he has never held the child before. Up in the tiny mountain village, Flint, Dirk wrestled Fallon into the car while he cried for his mother. Outside, the storm has grown stronger and Dirk knows he will not be driving in it. _Not now I've you got him safe. _He radios back to the academy and he is shocked to hear his voice, hoarse and shaking. His hands tremble on the receiver. So Dirk holds the child on his lap while the wind tears at the car and flings snow like bullets. With one hand, he presses Fallon tightly against him, but the other he keeps over the pulse at his neck. It is weak, but Dirk's heart is strong and fast and he hopes that Fallon will feel it. Beyond the car, it is the worst October storm that District 2 has seen in fifteen years, but when Fallon stirs, Dirk cannot remember feeling the warm glow that brings new tears to his eyes. He presses his lips to his nephew's hair; it is the first time he has kissed him.

"I've got you, I've got you…" Then, Dirk is crying again.

_xii. _

The first storm of October roars over the Kellies, but Fallon nestles his head against his uncle's chest. He is barely awake and Dirk's sobs sound far more frightening than the scream of the wind outside. Dirk holds him until he's in danger of snapping ribs like icicles, but Fallon's heartbeat is growing stronger, now. When the child speaks at last, there is a slur to his voice and his lips are still dark and numb. He tells his uncle that he is cold, and Dirk's rough sobs turn quickly to laughter. Fallon does not understand why his uncle is laughing now, because in his mind, Dirk adds up to a gruff voice, a frown, a rough gesture, _go on, you can do it faster this time, you weren't even trying. _But the child is just happy to be held. He will not remember it, his mind clouded by cold, but his uncle will. When Fallon starts to drift to sleep again, Dirk shakes him roughly and grips his chin until he has to look up. Fallon's pupils are so heavily dilated that his eyes are nearly black.

"Don't go to sleep on me, Fallon," Dirk says softly. "How about a story?"

_xiii. _

The storm is a wild beast, but its teeth have been pulled and its claws scraped dull. Still it stalks among the streets and the crags, but it has given up hope of finding a victim tonight. There is no longer the roar of a challenge in the wind as it batters at the ute in the snow. The familiar shapes of the hills have been smudged in white and grey, and slowly the quarry is filling with snow, but Dirk raises his chin and smiles at the storm. It is the darkest, coldest part of the night but he does not mind. His snow-sense tells him that it will not be safe to drive for an hour or two. He gathers both Fallon's hands in his and brings them up to his lips.

"Alright, let's have a happy one."


End file.
